Cantus Manuscript Database: Inventories of Chant Sources

Cantus is a database of the Latin chants found in over 140 manuscripts and early printed books. This searchable digital archive holds inventories of primarily antiphoners and breviaries from medieval Europe; these are the main sources for the music sung in the Latin liturgical Office.

New phases of the project include adding chant melodies to existing records and indexing manuscripts for the Mass, including those sources that contain sequences.

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What's new

After a period of testing, we have closed our old site (cantusdatabase.org) and are redirecting everyone to this new site at the University of Waterloo. Please edit any bookmarks you have. We hope you enjoy the updates, new sources, and new analysis programmes!

Thanks to Jan Kolacek for representing the Cantus Database and Cantus Index last week with a poster at the 45th Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference in Prague. If you have any questions about either of our databases, or if you would like more information about the Cantus Analysis Tool, please write to us.

The series 'Historiae' is devoted to the edition of medieval saints' offices. It is published for the Study Group 'Cantus Planus' of the International Musicological Society and appears as part of the series 'Musicological Studies' at the Institute of Mediæval Music (Kitchener Ontario) under the supervision of Debra Lacoste. 'Historiae' was created by David Hiley. Its first volume was published in 1995; today the series comprises of 27 volumes. Present series editors are Zsuzsa Czagany, Barbara Haggh, and Roman Hankeln.

We began an inventory of the antiphoner copied by Jacobellus of Salerno, now held by the Art Institute of Chicago! Our willing participants learned about the layout of manuscript pages, the expected order of chants throughout the offices, how to navigate through the Cantus input screens (some automated and some manual), and more.